Trends in glyphosate herbicide use in the United States and globally

By Charles Benbrook. Environmental Sciences Europe, 2016

1,586 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BackgroundAccurate pesticide use data are essential when studying the environmental and public health impacts of pesticide use. Since the mid-1990s, significant changes have occurred in when and how glyphosate herbicides are applied, and there has been a dramatic increase in the total volume applied.MethodsData on glyphosate applications were collected from multiple sources and integrated into a dataset spanning agricultural, non-agricultural, and total glyphosate use from 1974–2014 in the United States, and from 1994–2014 globally.ResultsSince 1974 in the U.S., over 1.6 billion kilograms of glyphosate active ingredient have been applied, or 19 % of estimated global use of glyphosate (8.6 billion kilograms). Globally, glyphosate use has risen almost 15-fold since so-called “Roundup Ready,” genetically engineered glyphosate-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996. Two-thirds of the total volume of glyphosate applied in the U.S. from 1974 to 2014 has been sprayed in just the last 10 years. The corresponding share globally is 72 %. In 2014, farmers sprayed enough glyphosate to apply ~1.0 kg/ha (0.8 pound/acre) on every hectare of U.S.-cultivated cropland and nearly 0.53 kg/ha (0.47 pounds/acre) on all cropland worldwide.ConclusionsGenetically engineered herbicide-tolerant crops now account for about 56 % of global glyphosate use. In the U.S., no pesticide has come remotely close to such intensive and widespread use. This is likely the case globally, but published global pesticide use data are sparse. Glyphosate will likely remain the most widely applied pesticide worldwide for years to come, and interest will grow in quantifying ecological and human health impacts. Accurate, accessible time-series data on glyphosate use will accelerate research progress.

Subfields: Plant Science, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f106c99944f33af6f05ee2756912bd14d66e12a3

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Plant Science

1. Vagner A. Benedito
2. B. Darvas
3. A. Kniss
4. Joginder Singh
5. Andras Szekacs
6. Tiffany L. Fess

In Pollution

1. Vagner A. Benedito
2. B. Darvas
3. A. Kniss
4. Andras Szekacs
5. Tiffany L. Fess

Citations in the corpus

• Organic versus Conventional Cropping Sustainability: A Comparative System Analysis (2018, methodology): “, the proportion of HT crop lands have increased from 10% for corn and cotton, and 17% for soybean in 1996 to 89% and 94% in 2014, respectively; on which 250 million pounds (113 million kg) of glyphosate were applied, 49% on soybean crops alone [68,70].”
• Re-registration Challenges of Glyphosate in the European Union (2018, background): “Since its introduction as an herbicide active ingredient in 1971 (Baird et al., 1971), glyphosate [N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine] became and remains the market leading herbicide active ingredient worldwide (Dill et al., 2010; Székács and Darvas, 2012; Benbrook, 2016).”
• Genetically Engineered Herbicide-Resistant Crops and Herbicide-Resistant Weed Evolution in the United States (2017, background): “Certainly, the widespread adoption of GE crops and the associated increase in glyphosate use (Benbrook 2016) has dramatically increased the selection for glyphosate-resistant weeds.”
• Glyphosate uptake, translocation, resistance emergence in crops, analytical monitoring, toxicity and degradation: a review (2020, background): “Globally, the share of total use of glyphosate among other herbicide during 1974–2014 was 1.5%, which increased to 71.6% from 2005 to 2015 (Benbrook 2016; Kaur et al.”